This watchdog blog, by journalist Norman Oder, offers analysis, commentary, and reportage about the $4.9B project to build the Barclays Center arena and 15-16 towers at a crucial site in Brooklyn. Dubbed Atlantic Yards by developer Forest City Ratner in 2003, it was rebranded Pacific Park Brooklyn in 2014 after the Chinese government-owned Greenland Group bought a 70% stake going forward. As of 2018, after the arena and four towers were built, Greenland owns 95% of future construction.

(I first wrote about the project in April 2017, but now it's going through ULURP.)

The article mentions the potential ripple effects down Flatbush at Pacific Park's Site 5, home to huge potential two-tower project, and concern raised by neighborhood groups.

Annotated April 2017 rendering of 80 Flatbush (foreground left), with arrow pointing to Site 5

More on Site 5

I didn't have space for the full statements, of course. To elaborate on that, the Boerum Hill Association excerpts a letter from the Park Slope Civic Council (PSCC):

While some of these features can be considered to be highly desirable, particularly the 200 units of affordable housing and the added school capacity, the project suffers from seeking to do too much on too small a site. In the process, it would overwhelm the adjacent scale and historic character of the Boerum Hill community and create traffic bottlenecks on Third Avenue, a major artery that serves commuters from throughout Brooklyn seeking to connect to the Manhattan Bridge. The resulting traffic congestion would make an already highly congested situation intolerable, but it would further exacerbate the problem at a time when traffic may be diverted for years while the BQE is being reconstructed.Of immediate concern to the PSCC is the intersection of Atlantic, Flatbush and 4th Avenues, or the Site 5 parcel of the Atlantic Yards Project, which could take advantage of this zoning to construct an immense tower that would similarly seriously degrade the character and livability of the adjacent area that abuts Park Slope and Boerum Hill. We call upon the City to delay the ULURP process….

Annotated February 2018 rendering of 80 Flatbush (foreground left), with arrow pointing in direction of Site 5

From the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council, as cited by the Boerum Hill Association:

Specifically, the proposal to allow density of 18 FAR at the site is unprecedented for a location abutting an R6B zone containing row houses…Tripling the current FAR next to a low-rise residential neighborhood is not only poor urban design, it would create a dangerous precedent in a part of Brooklyn experiencing tremendous development pressure…. The current zoning allows for 6 FAR, providing a transition between the new high rise buildings…and the row houses south and west along State Street. Should 80 Flatbush proceed as proposed, for example, it would be very likely to be cited as precedent by Atlantic Yards developers Greenland Forest City Partners to justify their expected application to shift density previously planned for the southeast corner of Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush Avenue.Our concern here is not simply one of urban design and aesthetics. The experience of neighbors living next to the Atlantic Yards project over the last seven and a half years has not demonstrated that dense, out-of-scale new development is compatible with historic, low-rise residential blocks. We have instead seen protracted construction create significant environmental impacts to these residents, and operations of new uses change the character of the neighborhood.